Prelude to a Duet
by Wraithfodder
Summary: Duet followup. Sheppard's point of view, of the events that transpired as well as what happened afterwards with Rodney. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

TITLE: **Prelude to a Duet**  
AUTHOR: Wraithfodder  
RATING: T  
CATEGORY: Gen, humor, angst  
SPOILERS: Season two episode "Duet" 

_Copyright Disclaimer_: The _Stargate Atlantis _characters, as presented on the series, belong to MGM, Sci Fi, and other registered copyright holders. No copyright infringement is meant or intended by the writing and posting of this material. I'm just borrowing the characters and the universe for a piece of non-profit 'fan fiction' and will return in one piece (well, usually). However, all original characters and story material are copyright to author. Please do not repost this fiction, in whole or in part, anywhere, without expression written permission of the author.

**SUMMARY: A follow-up to the second season episode "Duet," from Sheppard's point of view, of the events that transpired as well as what happened afterwards**

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**Prelude to a Duet**

**PART 1**

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

I couldn't believe the extent of the devastation on S2M 6L8. Another world culled to hell and back by the Wraith. No survivors as far as we could see, but we could just hope that someone had escaped into the hills. We couldn't cover the entire planet, but this particular little village was toast. Even Teyla, who'd lived her entire existence under the threat of the Wraith, had been shocked. I could hear it in her voice, and all I'd had to say was a witty remark about too many "hands to feed," or something like that. You couldn't dwell on carnage like this or else you'd go nuts. There was nothing we could do for the dead except to survive and beat back the Wraith.

We were heading back to the gate when Lieutenant Cadman called in a report of a Wraith dart. Shit! There was no way we could let it get through the gate. I gave the order to have it shot down. If word got back to a hive ship that Atlantis was alive and well and just pulling off a monumental bluff, we'd all be fish food before nightfall.

I'd assigned Cadman, a newbie who came in off the Daedalus - one of the many replacement troops that Atlantis got - to keep McKay and Beckett out of trouble. I'd thought about sending Major Lorne with him, but he's trained in the larger ordinance, so I brought him with my group. And, Cadman had just jumped at the chance to keep the two men in line. Had to be a masochist to want to willingly listen to those two complain and argue; I only hoped she was as good as her record led me to believe.

I'd made it to the open Stargate, just before hearing the drawn-out stattaco of gunfire at the dart, and an explosion as a missile hit its mark. Unfortunately, it hadn't been the dart meeting its maker. I could hear that cold screaming whine approaching my location, like some demonic hornet, just as Beckett screamed into the radio that McKay and Cadman had been swept up in a Wraith beam. Fuck. Wasn't it bad enough that Ford had deliberately run into one of those beams just days ago? Now McKay had met that same fate? God forgive me, Rodney, but I can't let Atlantis fall. I aimed my gun at the approaching dart and fired, and kept firing till I scored a hit, then watched the accursed ship plow into the area above the top of the hill, spewing up a black cloud of smoke and dirt. Dammit, I'm sorry, Rodney.

When I got up there, I found Beckett, covered in dirt like a mole, approaching the downed dart and its pilot, who was still alive. I couldn't fault Beckett for not firing his gun, not really. He's trained to save lives, not take them, but I scared the shit out of the poor guy when I shot the pilot dead, several times. Wraith just don't drop dead. You have to make sure. Carson has yet to be in a real combat situation, except for the siege on Atlantis, and he wouldn't know a Wraith self-destruct switch from a radio knob. He argued that we'd never get McKay and Cadman out of the ship now that I'd killed the pilot, but I also knew - and kept my mouth shut - that we wouldn't be doing much of anything if we'd been blown up into bite-size chunks across the landscape.

I swear, as much as I've adapted to having them around, scientists and civilians are like squirrels on a highway. Disaster happens and they don't know what to do. Well, that's not true. Give 'em a disaster in a controlled environment and they'd make me look like a ventriloquist's dummy, but damn, how the hell had Beckett nearly been run over by the dart? Didn't a huge flying object coming in low give him a hint to run in another direction? Squirrels, damn squirrels.

Atlantis' most brilliant mind had now been 'beamed' into the Wraith computer storage unit, or whatever they called it. That sucked, because if it had been Cadman and Beckett instead, McKay would have had this figured out in the same amount of time it takes to boil a pot of eggs. Instead, I dragged the second most brilliant scientific mind, at least I think he is, off Atlantis and had him shoved through the gate. When something shorted out on the rear of the dart, and he jumped around, head swerving here and there, all I could think of was squirrel stopped on the roadway as a truck bore down on it to turn it into a flat furry puddle. A quick question and yup, it was Zelenka's first trip off-world. I couldn't remember if he'd gone off with any other teams. Seems every time I took my team off-world, we'd get ourselves into a mess of trouble, so what other teams were doing at the same time wasn't always my priority, and names tended to blend together after a while. Unless someone died, then the names were practically burned into my mind. Markham, Gaul, and so many more after the Wraith attacked Atlantis.

I couldn't believe it. Now Zelenka, who just seconds ago told me we could pull one person out of the memory and the choice was so obvious it could have been a headliner in Vegas, was now telling me he had no idea which blip on the screen was Rodney. Crap. I could have sat there from now till doomsday trying to figure out which dot was Rodney, and I'd choose McKay no matter what because he could figure out how to get Cadman out in one piece as well. So, I just pointed at the closest dot. If I'd been in Vegas, I would have rolled seven and won the jackpot, but this was even better. A brilliant beam shot out and a second later, McKay appeared, looking none the worse for wear. I asked him if he was okay. I think he might have made some kind of noise, but then he just toppled over like a fallen tree.

Being in command sucks at times. I couldn't allow myself the luxury of accompanying Rodney back through the gate. I was stuck coordinating sending him back plus getting the remains of the dart back to Atlantis, and, since paranoia was in vogue these days, we had to cover our tracks, literally. By the time the team was done, there was no sign of the mechanized tracks of the equipment we used to haul back the dart, no gum wrappers, nothing. It was like we'd never even been there.

I hovered briefly at the infirmary, but Carson told me there was nothing I could do. McKay was still out of it, hooked up to enough electrodes that it made me think of all the wires attached to the back of a home entertainment system. Rodney was suffering the same effects of a Wraith stun, but he was also the first person we'd retrieved from a dart. I could have grabbed a chair and stared at Rodney, which I did briefly, just to get off my feet, but then I went down to see how Zelenka was doing with the dart. The man was so much more relaxed once he was in the environs of Atlantis: the safety of walls, security everywhere, no chance of a Wraith sucking you up to a grisly death. But it wasn't so easy to get Cadman out of the Wraith ship. Damned incompatibility and friggin' power units. It was like trying to make a Mac and a PC cooperate or whatever the scientists were always mumbling about in crabby voices. The Wraith equipment was fried, but the good news was that Cadman's essence, body, whatever, was being kept in good storage. I couldn't do anything there so I went to find our newest guest, Ronon Dex.

A simple tap on my radio gave me the info I needed. I found him in the commissary, chowing down rather enthusiastically on food. Read food. Not foil-wrapped reconstituted chemical wads of something that can rip out your teeth. The man has no idea how lucky he is to have arrived on Atlantis _after_ we got supplies, otherwise he'd have gotten just a PowerBar or two, but I can't lie and say the rest of us didn't attack real food rather voraciously as well when it got here. Who cared if the mashed potatoes were fake? They were hot and tasted familiar. We'd run out of the fake spuds months before the Daedalus arrived. While the Athosians had begun supplying us with some of their homegrown delicacies, nothing could beat mashed potatoes and gravy.

After watching him eat for a few minutes, I handed him the knife and fork he'd neglected to use. Stuffing your face with your fingers was fine and dandy when it came to fried chicken and watermelon, but mashed potatoes weren't finger food. I knew he came from a world that wasn't primitive. Even the burnt out husks of buildings we'd seen on the MALP's footage indicated some pretty inventive architects. As to whether their technology rivaled Earth's or even the Ancients was unknown - he still wouldn't say where his weapon was from - homegrown or picked up along the way – but his world wasn't primitive enough to not have invented a fork, or even chopsticks. But on the other hand, living life on the run probably means you eat on the run, too.

We talked a little longer, or rather, I did the talking. Dex isn't the most talkative of people, but then again, seven years on the run, he's been avoiding people, so the art of communication looks like another skill he needs to polish. I can't place my finger on it. The man is an enigma. He's grateful to us for removing the tracker from his back and freeing him from constant Wraith pursuit, but he's also a man without a country - hell, without a world. I think he's waiting to see what our next move is, which is solely up to me. I'd made the decision to bring him back to Atlantis. He could have gone elsewhere, but Beckett insisted on checking up on the incision, which was a wise move as the fight he'd had with Ford had ripped out all the stitches Carson had put in not long before.

So I had to make a decision, and knew it had to be fast. Ronon Dex didn't look like the kind of guy who just wanted to hang around. He was thinking, I could tell, but about what, I didn't know. I know that Colonel Caldwell viewed him as a security risk, but then everybody in Pegasus was a security risk. It wasn't like you could get an unlisted gate address.

I'd seen Dex in action on the planet. The man was damned good at staying alive, but I wanted to see him in a more controlled environment.

Then Beckett called with the news. It was great to hear that Rodney was alive and well, walking and talking, and complaining. Right as rain. Carson then had to just dash it all to hell, explaining that Lieutenant Cadman's consciousness had somehow ended up in Rodney's noggin. Excuse me? I mean, that's straight out of a Star Trek. The old one, what folks call "classic" or whatever. Kirk had had some evil whacko woman's mind in his and she took over, plotting world domination or whatever the villains did in shows like that back in the sixties.

On the flip side, Rodney was in control of his own body. His MRI was fine, so no brain damage, but after watching him for a few minutes, I was beginning to question Carson's diagnosis. We made our way back to the lab where Zelenka was still struggling to solve the problem with the dart. What a nightmare. Rodney's not always pleasant but with someone else in there, what little patience he did exhibit pretty much evaporated with Cadman knocking about inside his skull. I'd seen McKay and Zelenka argue before but McKay was pretty much teetering on the abyss of a breakdown when he began arguing with both Zelenka and Cadman at the same time. Then, he'd yelled so loud at Elizabeth that everybody in the lab stopped and stared as though they'd just witnessed a cataclysmic car wreck. Rodney managed to gather his emotions together but by then, we were beginning to worry about his sanity. I think we all did a pretty good job of not letting it show on our faces, although I did make a remark about 'being crazy' that thankfully didn't tick off either McKay or Cadman. Thank god Elizabeth is the bastion of calm. I was thinking that having a few Marines grab McKay by the arms and haul him back to the infirmary was looking good because I really thought he was beginning to lose it. He gets that lost look in his eyes and lips start to quiver. Instead, Elizabeth sent him down to see Heightmeyer, hoping the psychologist could do something. If nothing else, it got McKay out of Zelenka's hair, which looked frayed enough as it was.

I had some of the new Marines working with Dex in the workout room. They were gung-ho, eager and raring to take on an 'alien.' I just made myself comfy, leaning casually against a workout dummy and doing my best not to wince in sympathy as I watched the much larger Dex just wipe the floor with Wilkins, Bennett, and Rollins. It was brutal but Dex showed he knew he wasn't there to kill but to fight. If he'd snapped one of my men's bones, I'd have to reconsider my gut feeling on the man. In a situation like this, command had is perks - I could delegate this task off to the younger and more eager, and I wouldn't come out of it black and blue and practically crawling away, like Wilkins.

For some foolish reason, I thought I'd impress Dex with our primitive Earth weapons, but before I could even get the name of the weapon out of my mouth, he'd grabbed the weapon in question and in each instance, made short work of the middle of the target. Damned good aim. But he preferred his sidearm, and when I saw the middle of that target just blown away and the sandbag backing behind it singed black, his words from not long ago of "you're lucky I had set that to stun" came to mind. My arm had stung from the stun shot, but hell, I wouldn't even have an arm if he'd used that setting. Could sure use an arsenal of those weapons in the armory.

The day flew by as I put Dex through a few more tests, and he passed with flying colors. The man was a lethal weapon on two feet. No doubt about it. I'd approach Elizabeth tomorrow about him joining my team. I knew it would take a trial mission to make the decision 100 per cent, but I was willing to take the risk.

I ran into Rodney roaming the halls at night. I was roaming, too. The entire dart fiasco still weighed on my mind. Visions of Ford running into the light from just days before, of aiming my weapon at the dart and knowing full well that I was probably killing Rodney, was not conducive to a good night's sleep. Major Lorne had been upset that he'd missed the dart with the missile, but in the long run, the innocent tree that gotten in the way had in turn saved McKay and Cadman from being blasted into oblivion.

I'd heard that McKay and Zelenka had had another run-in at the lab. Zelenka's worried for Rodney. Rodney's making mistakes in his calculations, which isn't like him at all. The man lives and breathes to be correct and to let everybody know that. The damage to the transformer was repairable, Zelenka had told me, but … he wanted McKay to stay out of the lab. It was impossible to work with the Canadian screwing things up. I never thought I'd hear the words 'screwing up' applied to McKay, but in this situation…

I'd given a quick thought to not approaching Rodney - the man had enough problems - but then maybe he needed someone to talk with and, I was concerned about him. I mentioned the transformer test, just briefly, testing the waters. He didn't explode, giving me the impetus to mention the dart. I wanted him to know that it had been me who'd given the order to take down the dart, even knowing that he'd been in it. Astoundingly, McKay was 'fine' with it. I was sort of shocked - I'd expected a blow-up but it hadn't occurred. "So, we're cool?" I'd ventured. Still looking tense, McKay had replied, "No, you're cool, I'm fine." Rodney McKay has the most incredibly honed sense of self-preservation that I've ever seen in a man. He can do some foolish things to jeopardize his life if the need arises and there are lives to save, but he doesn't like people trying to kill him. Ford had shot at him, had threatened to kill him. Maybe that hadn't caught up with him yet; it had only been a few days. But then Rodney indicated that basically dead in a blown-up dart was better than the alternative: being dined upon by a Wraith. I could see in his face, in his eyes, that everything was catching up with him. He looked bone-tired so I told him to get some rest. He cocked his head, pointed at himself, and said that Cadman said she was tired, too. Then I realized why I'd been leery of approaching him. This whole two minds in one head thing is too weird. I'm talking to Rodney but Cadman is sitting inside him, listening, watching, like, I don't know, some scifi kind of voyeur-vision. It's too weird and bizarrely creepy. Great, now I'm thinking about how that little Asgard kept staring at me on the Daedalus. Earth was never this convoluted.

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_Author's Notes_: Hope you enjoyed it! More to come very shortly. I didn't think there was enough Sheppard in the episode, well, enough Sheppard with Rodney (no, not slash, just as friends). 


	2. Chapter 2

TITLE: **Prelude to a Duet**  
AUTHOR: Wraithfodder  
CATEGORY: Gen, humor, angst  
SPOILERS: Season two episode "Duet"  
See Part 1 for copyright disclaimers

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**PART 2**

Despite the fact that I got little sleep - catnaps were fine - I found myself arriving late the next afternoon to the sparring match I'd had set up with Teyla. The matches were good for releasing tension, but when the door opened, I felt my stress levels notch up a setting when I saw Teyla engaged in a healthy fight with Dex, who towered over her, like a Great Dane facing off with a tenacious terrier. It all happened in a flash. Dex took advantage of the distraction I'd created by simply showing up and knocked Teyla to the floor with such ferocity - pinning her neck down with his hand – that I'd lunged forward and grabbed the stick in his hand to prevent further mayhem. Nobody flinched - not Dex, not Teyla, nor the guards who were watching from the sides. Dex backed off, saying he wouldn't have hurt her, then left and his guards followed him out. I felt like I'd just been flipping through a book and someone had torn out several pages, leaving me with no clue as to what had just happened. Teyla composed herself, but I noticed she still rubbed at her bruised neck, saying she'd told Dex not to go easy on her. I warned her that she had to be careful with Dex.

I decided to take my 'reserved time' with Teyla to talk instead of spar. I think she'd had enough of that for the day, and quite honestly, I didn't want to add to the bruises that I knew she would be sporting on her backside from that knockdown. So we talked, about Dex, his capabilities and the future. We'd both had 'quality time' with the man when he'd captured us on that hellish world. He'd had multiple chances to kill us and hadn't. He'd saved McKay from Ford. All that counted a lot in my book, even more so than his weapons skills. I could pretty much choose whom I wanted from the soldiers now stationed on Atlantis. They were all combat veterans - no green newbies here. Major Lorne would be a good man on my team, even if he and McKay didn't see eye to eye but Dex offered something no one else could: he'd battled the Wraith for years and survived. Teyla agreed; she'd heard of runners before but had never met one, had never even been sure if the stories were true. The only thing that nagged at me was if the man could work as part of a team: he'd been forced to become a loner in order to survive and would he back up a team if they were all in trouble? There was no test for that; it could only determined in a real situation. Teyla asked if I were going to add Dex to my team. I said yes. She arched an eyebrow, smiled that mysterious smile she sometimes gives me, making me wonder what she'd truly been thinking: stupid idea, or finally, you've seen the light. She repeated her offer of a sparring match, and foolishly, I accepted. After half a dozen well-placed whacks, I was reconsidering my decision.

Zelenka got us all in the lab for a test, squelching my idea for a quick snack. Even Rodney showed up, dressed in a casual jacket. Where on earth had he gotten that? Oh yeah, Earth. Anyway, I'd heard something about a date. I don't even want to think how that went - what kind of date could you have with someone else in your head? However, the date had to have gone loads better than the test. Zelenka did a trial run of beaming up and reanimating two little white mice. However, when they got remolecularized, my appetite for a snack vanished like dew in the desert sun. The rodents were now a pair of smoking, charred black corpses. McKay stared in horror at the crispy critters and began to freak. I couldn't blame him. Get burned up or having someone else renting out half your body for all eternity was pretty bad.

It was back to the drawing board, but at least McKay and Zelenka didn't have another blow-out argument like before. McKay looked too frazzled to argue with anyone, and I know he's gone to see Heightmeyer again to deal with the escalating pressure. I don't know what the woman can offer except a kind smile and a reassuring attitude.

I managed to snag Elizabeth, approaching her about adding Dex to my team. She looks less than pleased about my query, even when I smile. Perhaps the smile just isn't working on her anymore, or maybe Colonel Caldwell's nagging bureaucratic influence – even though he's off on the Daedalus somewhere - about who picks who for what is wearing her down, but I manage to convince her to at least talk to Dex herself and make up her mind

Rodney's deteriorating. I got a call from Beckett that Rodney was back in the infirmary and it wasn't good. The details were fuzzy but he'd been having a session with Heightmeyer, engaged in a helluva argument with Cadman, when he gone into a seizure and collapsed to the floor. He was unconscious when I got there. Beckett and Heightmeyer were hovering around doing nothing more than talking medical-speak that I know Rodney despises and fortunately can't hear. I demanded to know how it had gotten this far, why Heightmeyer hadn't done something or just what the hell did she do to push him over the precipice, but Carson just pulled me aside, explaining that two minds can't exist in one body. It's not meant to be and there's going to have be a decision made that, if Zelenka can't solve the problem quickly, will cost a life. That nearly knocked me off my feet. I'm new to this sharing bodies stuff – everybody else seems to take it so much more in stride like it's no different than changing clothes – but I hadn't considered that someone might die. Go insane, yes. I could see Rodney just flipping out after a while. Heck, in a week he'd be weaving baskets if Cadman didn't let up. He's not a people person as it is and having another person constantly inside him must be driving him nuts.

My radio chirped. Some mess-up in the armory. Beckett told me to go. I wanted to stay. Shit. How could I leave McKay at a time like this, unconscious or not? Beckett said he'd call me as soon as anything new developed. I reluctantly left, hoping that 'new' didn't mean dead.

The call came less than an hour later, after I'd reamed out Sergeants Rameriz and Deeter about putting supplies in the wrong spot. The mistake was minor, but it was so petty it just ticked me off something fierce. Heightmeyer would no doubt call it 'hostility transference' as there I was counting boxes of grenades when I'd rather be standing around the infirmary waiting for Rodney to wake up and hopefully still **be** Rodney. Even if I were utterly useless standing there, I'd be there.

When we got to the lab, Rodney was in his scrubs and a robe, puttering around like it was just another day on Atlantis. Energetic, frenzied, the old Rodney, but none of us could believe that he was going to experiment on himself since all the mice from previous attempts were dead, dead with a capital D, but the seizure hadn't been fun, and apparently the risk of being turned into charcoal briquettes was preferable to another seizure that could possibly cause permanent brain damage or worse. I wasn't so sure of that myself, not after seeing the smoking mice, but this was Rodney's decision to make as it was his life on the line.

He was just seconds away from telling Zelenka to press the button that would decide his fate, when it was like someone had flipped a light switch. I realized that Cadman had taken over. McKay's demeanor shifted, enough that it was noticeable to someone who spent god knows how many hours stuck in a puddle jumper with the man. Cadman was at the helm. However, even I couldn't have guessed at her actions. Rodney had just walked over to Beckett, grabbed his lab coat by the lapels and planted a kiss on the physician that left the Scott looking shell-shocked. Then Cadman decided after she'd had her way with the doc – whom she obviously had the hots for - to leave McKay literally holding the bag, or in this case, Beckett. It wasn't a Kodak moment by any means, not unless I wanted to get my jaw punched for even joking about it. McKay looked like he wanted to be a charred mouse at that point, appearing a bit mortified, hugging an arm to his chest, hand to face, and telling Zelenka to just proceed. So the Czech zapped him into oblivion, atoms, whatever, dragged him into that virtual Wraith vacuum cleaner, then began doing that time-sucking science spiel of explaining everything he was doing but I didn't want all that stupid yakking. I wanted my people back. NOW! So I told him to do it. Zelenka hit the button and a second later, the beam coughed up both McKay and Cadman, looking none the worse for wear. A second later, they both collapsed to the floor. For a brief moment, I'd been really scared that they'd ended up like the test mice – dead – but Beckett found strong pulses on both of 'em. Thank god.

Now it was a matter of waiting. Beckett said both McKay and Cadman were going to be out for a while as both had gone through extreme shocks to their systems, both physically and mentally. He'd let us all know when they were awake.

Time dragged, so I caught up with Elizabeth in the control room. The multiple personality crisis had been solved and even she seemed more relaxed now that her Chief Science Officer wasn't going to end up in a padded room, so I pushed the case about Dex. That situation also couldn't drag on as if the answer was no, it would open up another kettle of fish, and I had my arguments ready for that, too. But she finally agreed, or maybe she relented, it was hard to tell, but in doing so, she placed ALL the responsibility for Dex on my shoulders. Why not? The safety of the entire city of Atlantis rested on my shoulders so what was one more person? However, if Dex broke something, he was going to have to pay for it, not me.

Rodney was out for a while, longer than Cadman. Maybe it's because Cadman's body was pretty much brand-new, spanking fresh out of being reconstituted, not being squabbled over by two people in one body. I never thought about it, but crap, was that was it was like, being taken over by a Gou'ald? Stuck in your body while someone else took it for a walk and made it do things you wouldn't dare do? Thank god Cadman wasn't a lemonade junkie or else McKay would be dead or on life support. She hadn't been on base long enough to pick up all the gossip, and I don't think 'oh by the way, I'm deathly allergic to citrus' would just crop up on a walk on another planet.

We congregated in the infirmary, just waiting. Marking time. Elizabeth found a perch on one of the Ancient medbeds that still look like pool tables to me, while I grabbed a chair and just planted an elbow on top, resting. I felt fried, even though it didn't really show. Zelenka had grabbed a chair and planted himself against another medbed. Despite all the insults that the two scientists flung back and forth between each other, and it had gotten nasty, they were like Siamese twins of sorts. Zelenka was the only scientist who could really tolerate all of McKay's acerbic wit and actually match it at times, although that was difficult for anybody to do.

I hadn't really slept a wink with all that had been going on since we'd gone to that planet, but we all shot up to our feet in an instant when Rodney McKay decided to join the rest of us and cracked open his bleary eyes. For a second, I'd seen a bit of panic in those eyes when Cadman spoke up from her bed and he'd looked in the wrong direction and, I guess, assumed she was stuck in him … forever.

Zelenka immediately went over to McKay's bedside and in their own bizarre way, the two men apologized and thanked each other. I followed Elizabeth over to Cadman's bed, knowing that I'd catch McKay later when we could talk without a zillion people around – or people inside his head. And I also knew Beckett's propensity for soothing all our worries and then kicking our collective asses out of the infirmary so his patients could rest.

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_One more part and then it's done!_


	3. Chapter 3

TITLE: **Prelude to a Duet**  
AUTHOR: Wraithfodder  
CATEGORY: Gen, humor, angst  
SPOILERS: Season two episode "Duet"  
See Part 1 for copyright disclaimers

* * *

**PART 3**

It was about a day until I really saw Rodney again. Oh yes, a briefing here, a 'how ya doin'?' there, but Rodney was resting up and he wanted his space. I couldn't blame the guy. We've all got our own personal space… that distance we don't want people violating, and apparently it's different in every country. We Americans have put the most distance between ourselves and others, and Rodney is no exception. He'd lost all his personal space in the flash of a Wraith dart beam. So, everybody was respecting his request to leave him alone. He wasn't hostile about it. He just wanted to bask in being alone. 

So, I'd busied myself with the Dex situation, and took some time for a talk with Lieutenant Laura Cadman. Beckett said she'd weathered the experience quite well, considering, which was good because my talk wasn't the most pleasant follow-up. The officer's manual didn't cover being stuck in someone else's head. I knew all about engaging the enemy, being captured by the enemy and the enemy figuratively trying to get into your head but not this real 'get in your head' mess, so I'd had to wing it. Just told her that she'd done okay, considering. Some folk might panic or have a total breakdown if trapped in such a mess and she hadn't, but…. I empathized that she should not, if she should ever find herself in a similar situation, ever 'hijack' another's body for a midnight run. She agreed and apologized, although it's Rodney who needs the apology, not me. Before I could figure out how to ask her – this was an informal debriefing of sorts – she actually spoke up and said that with the exception of the run and the kiss, she hadn't done anything… inappropriate. It was at that point I sorta went silent, which probably worried her to no end as maybe she was thinking I was going to reprimand or demote her for something, but instead I was pondering... did McKay just tell her not to look when nature called? Oh, hell, I did NOT want to go there. No, all that personal stuff could get ironed out with Heightmeyer. Cadman definitely left the meeting with an understanding that McKay's body was his own and that the constant struggle over dominance had nearly cost them both their lives, so next time, let the experts handle it. I wasn't sure what experts I was talking about, but she'd looked serious, which meant I got the point across, and she saluted and departed with my permission. 

Crap, why couldn't I just deal with my people shooting each other or something simple like that? 

I found Rodney in his lab, working on his computer. Normally I just barge in through the open door and annoy the man just as he annoys me. That's just the way it is, but I'm not sure how he's handling the decompression from his experience, so I knock. His head pops up from the laptop he was staring at, wide eyes looking at me. Not horrified or anything, which to me means I've got the A-okay to proceed. 

His lab is a clutter of Ancient technology and our stuff. How Rodney gets the two technologies to work together is beyond me, but he's the genius in that department. He still can't fly a jumper in a straight line, so I've got my job nice and secure. 

"So, they say silence is golden," I remark. 

The tiniest quirk touches his lips. "You have no idea, major." 

"Colonel," I correct. 

"Oh yeah. Still getting my brain back," McKay grinned a bit sadistically. I know he's getting revenge. He said that on the trip back on the Daedalus, I'd mentioned my promotion at least a dozen times. Heck, it hadn't been THAT much, plus I had to practice saying 'colonel.' Once in a while, I'd still sign something 'major', which really ticked off the person who had to redo the form. 

"So, how are things with Chex?" 

"Dex," I correct with a lopsided grin. Yeah, I don't think that's gonna last long, but it's better than calling him Bigfoot, which I heard McKay muttering at one point. The sight of McKay hanging upside down on the planet had been a fleeting glimpse. I'd been preoccupied with catching Ford and had, by default, entrusted McKay's welfare to Dex. He'd cut down McKay with a minimum of fuss and no damage. In retrospect, it had been a damned dangerous thing to do, leaving McKay hanging there with a stranger, but I'd felt I could trust the man. 

McKay had had a tough last last couple months – saving the city, dealing with a sporadically homicidal Ford, and now this. Why the hell he didn't put in for some vacation is beyond me. Even with the time on Earth, he'd worked all of that time as far as I knew. The man has some vacation coming, but then again, where would he go? He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy to go to the beach, not after all that whining about sunburns. 

"Hmmph," muttered McKay, looking at his laptop. 

"What?" 

"Nothing." 

I picked up some Ancient techy-trinket that McKay had yet to figure out what it was. I figured it was a doorstop but he refuses to admit that. He'll go to his grave insisting it's an important doodad of some kind. "I spoke with Lieutenant Cadman." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see McKay looked a tad bit panicked. Just how much into his mind did the woman get? Or what happened that she didn't tell me about? McKay managed to eek out an "Oh?" that he tried to make sound blaise. 

"About taking your body out for a midnight stroll," I elaborated, watching a flutter of relief go across his face. "Beckett mentioned your invite to dinner." Actually, he'd mentioned a little more than that – amazing what you could pry out of the doc with a jar of real orange marmalade swiped from the messhall. 

The expression I saw cross McKay's face looked pretty similar to how I must have looked when he'd planted that kiss on the doc. I know he's just thrilled to death that he, Cadman and Beckett are going to do a little group therapy with Heightmeyer later today. Just to iron out any wrinkles, so Elizabeth had said. I'd agreed. The whole situation was pretty bizarre and apparently when somebody got possessed by aliens back at the SGC, they got sent off to a shrink. 

"Oh god, I can't believe that…" He nearly put his face in his hands. 

"Don't worry," I say, trying to avoid any panicking on his part. "We'll go out on a mission, trip over some Wraith, have to run for our lives. Be back to normal in no time," I joke. 

Okay, I realized that the whole getting minds back into the proper bodies experiment might have been a lethal disaster, and that McKay probably let Cadman have her last word… so I continued. "Rodney, it's no big deal," I said. "So what if you nearly sucked Carson's face off?" 

"I did not!" McKay practically howled. 

Crap. He's not still upset about that? 

"It was just a kiss and not even ME," he continued, then sat down on a nearby stool, a glum look spreading across his expressive face. "Do you have any idea what it's like have somebody stuck in your head who is…" His face crinkled up in distaste. "Entertaining lascivious thoughts about Beckett?" 

I think I must have looked like a beached guppy, mouth open, not quite gasping for breath but certainly grasping for a reply to a question like that. No, I did not. I hoped to hell I never would. I like the empty space between my ears. Well, not empty, but certainly not sublet out to a tenant I couldn't evict. And as for Beckett, I sure don't swing that way, and I'm pretty confident McKay doesn't either the way he goes on about that blonde Colonel Carter. He's just a stereotypical geek type who spent his formative years with computers instead of chasing girls. Geez, why is McKay staring at me and glaring like I'd just dropped a virus on his PC? "What?" I shook my head. "No," I replied honestly. "Never had anybody inside my head." 

McKay typed something on the computer, but it looked like he was hunting and pecking just to keep himself occupied. "What, um, er…" 

Well, that was helpful. Okay, I'll take a wild guess. "Beckett talked to me. He thought you might be heading toward a breakdown after you invited him to dinner. Well, after Cadman invited him to dinner." 

I saw McKay's eyes narrow to suspicious slits. He's still pissed at the hijacking. I couldn't blame him. I couldn't really reprimand Cadman for her actions as the regulations didn't cover this kind of bizarre situation, but I'm sure Heightmeyer is going to give her an earful about her behavior while stuck inside Rodney, only in a nicer and probably more coherent manner than I had. 

"Nothing happened," I assured him, "security kept a tab on you. Didn't take long to figure it wasn't you, well, you you, if you know what I mean." 

"You had security watch me?" McKay didn't seem to like that, but I didn't care. I was responsible for his welfare, whether he liked it or not. 

"Yeah," I replied. "What if you went wandering off down a corridor and had an accident." 

"Accident?" prodded McKay. Why the hell was he making this so difficult? "Yeah, like slipping on a banana peel. I don't know. All they did was just make sure if you an adverse affect to the, uh, transference, someone would spot you." He didn't need to know that he'd been banned from gate travel, banned from stepping foot on a jumper and god forbid he even think about touching a naquadah generator when he'd been in that state. It wasn't that I didn't trust him or Cadman; I didn't want a repeat of the transformer miscalculation, only on a much larger scale. 

McKay's expression changed, and for a moment, it eerily reminded me of when Cadman had taken control of his body, but it was, I realized, just the over-thinking Rodney expression. 

"What did Beckett… say?" 

An earful, much of which didn't make sense, but Beckett had cheerily put the whole fiasco behind him once he'd discovered Cadman's amorous interest in him. I saw the way the doc's hand lingered on her hand before we left the infirmary. But anyway… 

"Well, first, Beckett said you were … nice." 

"I can be nice," McKay replied, giving me a frosty stare that contradicted his very words. 

"Very nice," I said, trying not to smirk. McKay abruptly looked horrified. Good lord, it wasn't as though Cadman tried to seduce Beckett while in McKay's body, at least I sure hope not. Beckett had gotten this knowing look when I talked with him but never said anything. I'd have to score a tin of scones or something to wrangle more out of him, I think. "As in well, just too nice. And then, the second tip off…" 

McKay scrunched his face in dreaded anticipation. 

"You don't run, Rodney, let alone jog." 

One of McKay's eyes twitched. A little repressed hostility? Oh yeah, he had a bone of contention to pick with Cadman over that, but after watching him slowly walk the next day, I think they'd already hashed out that little transgression. He'd probably awoken feeling like Ronon Dex had wiped the mat with him. The man was not an athlete by any means. 

"But I'm sorta impressed," I added, crossing my arms. And I was. 

"At what?" McKay frowned. 

"You clocked a mile," I replied. 

"Oh god, no wonder it felt like I'd been tortured," he responded with a groan, putting his face in his hands as he leaned forward. "Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up not knowing where you are or how you got there?" He sat up and stared at me with an odd exasperated expression. "Oh, look at who I'm talking to." 

Wait a second. Was he implying I made a habit of doing that? I decided not to respond to that remark, arching an eyebrow instead. 

It was almost like our regular banter. Insulting each other but not meaning to, and ignoring it, but I could see that Rodney was still a bit unnerved by the whole experience. Something was eating at him, and having another mind in with his own didn't seem to be the real problem. He'd explained earlier that he could hear what Cadman said, but couldn't get into her thoughts, and vice versa, so it hadn't been like she could unearth any deep dark secrets he was hiding. 

I watched as Rodney went back to his laptop, complaining to himself about the order of some file on a shared drive, when it hit me. It wasn't the fact that a strange woman had been cohabitating in his body, or the kiss. It was order and control. Rodney may deal with wild scientific theories but in the end, it all boils down to controlling an environment or situation to get the desired solution. He hadn't been able to think straight – nearly frying the transformer in the dart because of an erroneous calculation – and that had to have been a massive blow to his ego. But worse, he'd lost control. Period. Goes to sleep in one room, wakes up in another. 

And this wasn't like some wild weekend blackout where you try to figure out where you parked the car, because in that case, you were responsible for your actions. In this case, someone else was – and you knew it. 

As Rodney puttered on his computer, saying uncomplimentary things about something Zelenka had done, he thankfully ignored me standing there. I tried to put myself in his shoes. Nah, I wouldn't have needed a sedative or anything if I'd woken up with another voice in my head – as long as someone – and that would probably have been Rodney, no doubt perversely amused at my predicament – told me what was going on. After shooting a Wraith and watching her come back to life, a voice in the head seemed downright tame. 

Would I have let Cadman take control of my body, even if she asked? Hell no. I'd pull rank if nothing else. Plus I could stay awake for days on end; I'd done it before. But then again, I had caught catnaps, just a few minutes here or there. Hell, she could take me over at that moment of weakness. That would suck. Actually, it would be frightening. What if the Wraith attacked while I was asleep and she was busy doing… whatever… or she touched some Ancient thing and my gene activated it? Not that she would do it intentionally, but hell, she could accidentally blow up the base. 

A loud noise startled me out of my disturbing thoughts. Rodney was watching me with a very amused expression. He put down the coffee cup that he'd slammed against the countertop to get my attention. "Earth to Sheppard." 

"I'm here," I said defensively. 

"That's debatable," he replied. "Where were you?" He rapped a finger against his own head. 

"Just thinking of what it must have been like for you," I said truthfully. 

He was silent for a moment. "And?" 

"Couldn't have been fun." 

"Hardly," he snorted. "Cadman talks way too much. Nattering on constantly." 

"Nattering?" In all the years I'd been in the military, I'd never heard the word 'nattering' applied to any military personnel. 

"I still don't know how it worked," Rodney continued, "but she could just increase the volume in my head, asking the stupidest questions. She could be very grating." 

"Ah," I thought. "That must have been the 'do you have a degree in physics' remark?" 

He glared at me, but that didn't last long. "And then, she had the gall to…" 

Yeah? And? What? I hated when he did that as I really didn't know how to finish that sentence in this situation and it was rare that he _didn't_ finish his sentences. Cadman had sworn she'd done nothing inappropriate… 

"She gave me … dating advice." 

I relaxed and did my best not to burst out laughing if that was the worst thing she'd done. "That's it?" The glare returned with a vengeance, the type that would have turned me into a pile of charred cinders if it were possible. "What? Are you engaged now?" 

"No!" 

Geez, is that mortal terror I detect lurking in those hubcap-sized eyes? But he quieted down, settling back to a slightly disturbed expression. What was going on? Okay, nothing inappropriate, probably bad dating tips – at least for him, nattering, not shutting up. Oh. 

I hesitated, then asked, "Did she try to control the situation?" 

He didn't answer. Didn't have to. It was written all over his face. He'd suffered a seizure because of control issues, turned himself in lab experiment because of it, and could have killed himself in the process of ending it. 

"I guess," I began, but faltered. I wasn't sure what to say. 

"Ah yes, that sounds about right," Rodney snapped, waving an arm. "You've never been in a situation like this so all you CAN do is guess. Even trying to fathom what it was like is nothing like the real thing." 

I just stared at him. I wasn't the person to play dime-store shrink with him or anybody else. He interpreted my reluctance to reply as a negative response. 

"It's so frustrating to not be able to do what I needed to do because she was constantly there," he continued caustically. "And she wouldn't take no for an answer." 

Crap. Mental duress, even if it wasn't meant as that, was not good. "Such as?" I asked quietly. 

"Well, no, I was sleeping, so that doesn't run doesn't count – you know, I think I have shin splints now," he complained, more to himself than to me, I think. "And well, the slap, that doesn't count either, really." 

Slap? He slapped himself? Or she slapped him or he slapped her? And why? Oh hell, I don't want to know who said or did what to whom to elicit that reaction or maybe I did, but not just now. I'll save it for a boring spate of time on a mission. However, I decided not to feed his hypochondria about shin splints, so I simply smiled, which seemed to tick him off. 

"You know, you could show a little more sympathy," he protested. "It wasn't easy. Talk talk talk. Why this? Why that? If you'd just listen to ME once—" 

God, that sounded more like having a nagging girlfriend stuck in your mind and I really didn't recall Cadman being like that, but maybe the stress of being stuck in McKay's head was driving her nuts as well. It couldn't have been an easy place to be. Or maybe it had been like having a female duplicate of himself stuck in his head. He could talk more than anybody I knew. I did try to listen to what he said, but he has a propensity to go on at the mouth, especially when he feels when something's gone terribly wrong, or that imminent death is dangling over his head, waiting to snatch him in its horrid clutches. 

"And then she started closing up," he went on, the anger in his voice seeming to coil around itself. "She could have died because of me." 

And there it was, so clear it could have smacked me right in the face and I'd missed it. Survivor's guilt – only nobody had died. 

"And she's alive because of you," I added resolutely. 

"Through sheer dumb luck," he said morosely, which wasn't at all like him. Depressed Rodney I did not need. Neither did he. 

"Rodney, you can be more obnoxious and annoying than a mosquito, but you're not dumb and you make things work, and it's not because of luck." 

"She actually volunteered to … go away… because she felt she was less important," continued Rodney bleakly. 

Ah great, the obnoxious mosquito remark went right over him. 

"And that's why you rushed to experiment on yourself?" I asked. 

McKay paused, staring mindlessly at the laptop for a moment. "Well, yes, that and the thought of an upcoming fatal brain seizure." 

I could say something stupid, but it wouldn't solve the problem at hand. "If she'd died, it wouldn't have been your fault." 

McKay's gaze bored into me a laser. "I should have been able to figure it out sooner." 

"Why? Because you're the resident genius who saves the city at the last minute?" 

"But …" he argued. 

God. Guilt and Rodney McKay make a lousy combination, like vegetable-flavored ice cream and yet every so many years some dolt thinks consumers will shell out for spinach flavored ice cream. He hadn't seemed this down since Gaul and Abrams had been killed by a Wraith back on that desert world. Even when Grodin died, he hadn't been so introspective, but that had all happened so quickly, and it hadn't been something he could literally feel inside him. When Cadman had begun to fade, had it bee a pervasive physical sensation of loss? 

"Rodney." I leaned against the counter, just several feet from the scientist. "I know this may take a while to digest, but Lieutenant Cadman is a soldier. She's here to protect the civilian population, just like me. We make sacrifices and sometimes, it means we die." 

Oh great, now he looks more depressed. 

"Look, she signed up for this expedition knowing full well what the hazards were. Come to think of it, so did you," I said. "None of us expected the Wraith, and from what I gather, nobody gave much thought to the Gou'ald running around until somebody made the Stargate work." 

"Dr. Jackson did that," replied McKay dryly. 

"Whoever." Now was not the time for a history lesson. "Listen, did Cadman blame you for what happened?" 

I could see McKay's eyes sort of darting around, as if the answer were on a scrap of paper somewhere on the counter, but the logical side of him was creeping back in, thank god. "Um, no, but…" 

"So stop beating up on yourself, and next time, scatter." 

"What?" "Cadman told me she'd ordered you and Beckett to scatter. Beckett did, you didn't." 

"So now this is my fault?" shot back McKay, definitely insulted by what I said, and oddly enough, that made me happy. 

"No, but next time when some yells scatter, do it," I suggested, pushing back off the counter. "Look at this way, it could have been a lot worse." 

"Oh, in what respect?" he crossed his arms. "Unless you mean you would have missed shooting down the dart and I'd have ended up a buffet for a bunch of energy-sucking Wraiths." 

"There are worse things," I taunted. 

"Do tell," he prodded sarcastically. 

I just grinned like a Cheshire cat. "Could have been Beckett stuck in your head instead." 

"Oh god." McKay actually looked downright mortified. "I would have shot myself," he vowed. "At least Cadman was calm about imminent death but could you imagine the squawking Carson would have put up when I decided to bypass the mice test to just get it over with? Bad enough he whines incessantly about going through the gate but…" 

"Uh huh," I agreed happily as McKay continued to dwell on the hazards of mental cohabitation with Beckett. Yeah, that might be a nightmare, but I still think having McKay stuck in my head would be my worst nightmare. 

A voice sounded in my earpiece, startling me. Must have been what Rodney felt – startled. I tapped the radio, responded. I was wanted back in the armory. Another mix-up, this time with P-90 ammo, but now, I wasn't so annoyed at the bureaucratic bungling that seemed to have crept in from Earth. There were worse things, and Rodney was doing okay… 

…At least until the therapy session with Heightmeyer. 

**THE END**

* * *


End file.
